After holding a playtest yesterday with some well-known, good, players, it seems that a15 is not nearly as good as I had thought. The better the players are the more the maps' flaws are shown, I guess.
After a 19 minute back and forth where both teams were on each other's last points multiple times, I feel like I just need to step back and get it 100% perfect before continuing with detail. Yes that means a delay on b1, but I think that with a few major changes Spillway will come out much better.
Mostly I'm talking about the scale of areas in comparison to the other areas, the length of routes, and also the flow of the routes so that not so much turning is involved. I'm unsatisfied by the complexity of the area around 1-2 and 2nd still feels plain, so I'm planning to rotate last once more and realign it more to the right of 2nd, giving 2nd more of central position and shortening the distance to middle. I also want to change the yard up some, I know that the upper route to yard is useful but in 6v6 with good players I found that some of the geometry was just getting in their way. That upper route I think is going to change quite a bit in order to remove the long sightline there and to make the yard easier to take. As it is now, the yard is harder to take than 2nd, it seems. I'm also going to move the 2nd forward spawn and adjust pick-up placement, hopefully balancing with some competitive feedback.
Cheers
-FoX